Archive for June, 2011

It is June and winter has really got a grip on the garden outside. Only two and a half months left to prepare the garden for spring. One of the wonderful things about living in southern Australia is the changing seasons. There are special things about each season which one looks forward to with delight and anticipation.

Winter is a time to day dream and plan. You need to take stock and if it is too wet and cold it is very important to snuggle down in a comfortable couch with a few good gardening magazines or books and do some serious dreaming. If it is not too cold or wet you can go for a walk around and look carefully at the garden beds to decide which should be cut back and mulched down against the cold. During this quiet time, when a lot of the garden is dormant I like to look critically at the planting and perhaps make some changes.

One of the very best things about gardening is that nothing is constant, you are always able to lift and change things about. New roses come into the nurseries this month, so I am thinking about where I might fit in another one. It is a real problem in my shady garden, but I am sure I can find some sort of place where another rose might just be happy. There is always the fence, maybe a climbing rose?

The last rose for the season

This afternoon, in between the rain showers, I and the ducks were busy in the vegetable patch. I don’t get very much sun during winter, so I use this time to boost up my soil with compost and such like things. It is time to use up all the compost in one of my bins to make room for the leaves. So, I put that on and then a sprinkle of lime. I let it sit for a few weeks to sweeten the soil ready for a few seedlings when spring rolls round again. It never takes long you know. The ducks love this, it is one of the only times they get to go into the vege patch, very exciting! And you never ever know what you might find in the compost bin, esp if you are a duck!